Social Media has ALREADY made our organization flat! We do not need to wait for the structure to start interacting more intentionally with those above and below us.

1. Putting more focus on the local and national levels.
2. Beginning to structure Areas to better service national ministries at various stages of development. 3. Flattening the overall organization (i.e., eliminating a layer of structure) to increase responsiveness to grass roots needs.
4. Finding ways to engage more leaders at all levels.

Here are just a few free tools that allow our organization to communicate in radically new ways:

Twitter: This communication tool instantly levels the playing field between the top and bottom.

Tip for those at the top: Share the little things that provide glimpses of your day to day life.

Tip for those at the bottom: Share lots of links–especially in relation to what is influencing your thoughts on life, ministry, theology. In doing so you will help those leading above you have a better idea of what’s really going on.

Skype/Tokbox/Tinychat: This one has so much potential for us as an organization. A staff member from Romania messaged me a few months ago to see if I had a minute to skype. We ended up having a great 30 minute conversation about strategy, life, and evangelism. It was unbelievably refreshing for both sides. I believe if we all had 1-2 skype conversations a month with leaders different than us we would dramatically increase the collective knowledge of our organization.

Google Docs: A great way to see some of your ideas grow and take shape is to start a google document, invite as many people as possible to take a look and comment, and see where it goes. This is great if blogging is still new and you are not comfortable with the completely public nature of it.

How are you and your team using these tools? Where do you see the most potential to flatten our organization?

I loved this idea: “I believe if we all had 1-2 skype conversations a month with leaders different than us we would dramatically increase the collective knowledge of our organization.” Even though I’m currently in the US, I have a weekly skype call w/ team members in Australia, & I join in a Tuesday morning prayer meeting with team members in Canada. Both western countries, but slightly different cultures. It is so good for me to learn from these other leaders just by listening to the way they engage with the culture around them.

I would LOVE the opportunity to do a once a month skype chat with a leader from a drastically different culture- developing world, third world, or especially a creative access country. Can you think of a good way to have people throw their name in the hat?

http://www.brianbarela.com/ Brian Barela

hey ross i’ve been involved in more skype calls recently and it’s given me more vision and excitement for figuring out how to encourage it throughout our org.

the challenge for me was connecting to the network of overseas leaders; once i met a few, it became significantly easier to follow up with them.

if you have any ideas for how the blogference could broker those connections let me know! i’ll be thinking too.

http://www.hearditonthestreet.com Rich Street

I think you guys are onto something like this. I remember talking about having a truly global campus website where people could connect. Maybe we could do the same thing with a fb fan page and connect it to the blogference. I realize that the blogference is bigger than those of us that are campus ministry (now Student-Led movements) but I’ll bet about 80% of the active participants here are. We must get a global learning community here. For example, some of the things that the Ethiopian Student-led movement leaders are doing amazing things that the world needs to know and learn about!

http://www.twitter.com/rossandtaya ross

It looks like some of the creatives in church ministry have already figured out the value in this. I took part in a coaching call this morning with 12 others from across the country. Shawn Wood, communications pastor at Seacoast Church in South Carolina, shared with us for an hour on some of their best practices & answered questions that other leaders posed.

Hey, I enjoyed the blog. Is there any kind of directory for Crusade staff people who are using Twitter? Or has anyone started a Twitter list? That would be a great resource for the Crusade-Twitter community.